Pesticides in Crop Production

Physiological and Biochemical Action

Prabhat Kumar Srivastava, Vijay Pratap Singh, Anita Singh, Durgesh K. Tripathi, Samiksha Singh, Sheo Mohan Prasad, Devendra Kumar Chauhan, Prabhat Kumar Srivastava, Vijay Pratap Singh, Anita Singh, Durgesh Kumar Tripathi, Samiksha Singh, Sheo Mohan Prasad, Devendra Kumar Chauhan

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781119432234
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technik & Maschinenbau
• Subtopic: Agronomie

A guide to the diversity of pesticides used in modern agricultural practices, and the relevant social and environmental issues

Pesticides in Crop Production offers an important resource that explores pesticide action in plants; pesticide metabolism in soil microbes, plants and animals; bioaccumulation of pesticides and sensitiveness of microbiome towards pesticides. The authors explore pesticide risk assessment, the development of pesticide resistance in pests, microbial remediation of pesticide intoxicated legumes and pesticide toxicity amelioration in plants by plant hormones.

The authors include information on eco-friendly pest management. They review the impact of pesticides on soil microorganism, crops and other plants along with the impact on other organisms like aquatic fauna and terrestrial animals including human beings. The book also contains an analysis of pesticide by GC-MS/MS (Gas Chromatography tandem Mass Spectrometry) a reliable method for the quantification and confirmation of multiclass pesticide residues. This important book:

• Offers a comprehensive guide to the use of the diversity of pesticides and the pertinent social and environmental issues
• Explores the impact of pesticides from morphological, anatomical, physiological and biochemical perspectives
• Shows how pesticides affects soil microorganisms, crops and other plants along with the impact on other organisms like aquatic fauna and animals
• Critically examines whether chemical pesticides are boon or bane and whether they can be replaced by environmental friendly pesticides

Written for students, researchers and professionals in agriculture, botany, entomology and biotechnology, Pesticides in Crop Production examines the effects of chemical pesticides and the feasibility of using bio-pesticides.

1
Development of Pesticide Resistance in Pests: A Key Challenge to the Crop Protection and Environmental Safety

Subramani Pandian and Manikandan Ramesh

Department of Biotechnology, Science Campus, Alagappa University, Karaikudi, 630 003, Tamil Nadu, India

1.1 Resistance: The Introduction

Resistance is the micro‐evolutionary course of action by which genetic adaptation through pesticide selection has resulted in increased arthropod populations for which management is more difficult (Whalon and McGaughey 1998). The outcome of resistance is the malfunction of plant protection tools, strategies to limit economic injury of pest populations where failure is due to a genetic adaptation in the pest.

Resistance to pesticides is a complicated and substantial problem in circumstances where chemicals are used to eradicate pest populations. On the other hand, against the economic, communal, and ecological costs linked with this problem, resistant insects are a physiological marvel. Certain populations have become highly resistant to a specified insecticide, which can survive exposure to almost any dose. More than 440 species of pest which have developed resistance to one or more pesticides have been documented. One of the most amazing things in evolutionary adaptation is pesticide resistance due to environmental changes, especially when this has occurred relatively quickly in terms of evolutionary time. Prevalent distribution of resistance in crops and livestock pests is the major threat to the agricultural productivity and many of the serious resistance problems are also documented.

Understanding the molecular mechanisms and resistance adaptations in pest populations is a significant problem. However, the molecular mechanisms of pesticide resistance have continued and the understanding of these resistance mechanisms plays an important role in improving the integrated management and in identifying new targets for the vaccine development which is useful for eradicating the pesticide‐resistant pests on agriculture and for public health. Knowledge about resistance will pave the way for the fundamental perceptions into evolution, genetics, physiology, and ecology. Resistance can also make a severe economic loss with social disruption.

Over the past 15 years, the global area allotted to transgenic crops is more than 69 million hectares for reducing insecticidal toxins resultant of the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) which has emerged quickly (James 2008). Among these, Bt cotton and Bt maize were the most cultivated plants in this area (James 2008). Effective control of target pests, diminished use of conventional insecticides, and reduced harm to non‐target organisms are the important benefits of the use of Bt crops (Huang et al. 2005; Cattaneo et al. 2006; Marvier et al. 2007; Hutchison et al. 2010). Another theme is, giving greater importance to field trials and assessment of resistance in field populations will improve resistance management from concept to practice. The final theme is the next generation methodology of pest control which may greatly depend on microbial toxins, mostly through the expression of Bt toxin genes in genetically engineered crop plants and microorganisms. The remarkable usefulness of B. thuringiensis in killing some pests but which are not applicable for all the species is one of the drawbacks of this technology.

1.2 Pesticide Resistance: A Global Analysis

The evolution of resistance against pesticides is a fundamental problem of modern agriculture (Takahashi et al. 2017). The Analysis of Global Pesticide Resistance arose because of the exponential increase in the cases of resistance worldwide during the second half of the twentieth century and also the recognition by industries of new chemistries ended up with novel modes of action which are a precious resource that should be conserved. International Insecticide Resistance Action Committee (IRAC) mainly worked on different aspects of resistance management, such as detection and monitoring programs, and even more helpful is IRAC's utmost development, which is the effort to develop resistance reporting by mode of action (MOA) classification of pesticides. Based on that, the agrochemical industries have often put the effort to understand, define, monitor, and manage pesticide resistance (www.irac-online.org). The pesticide industry formed IRAC and other resistance action committees after scientific, public, and new regulatory pressures.

1.3 Molecular Genetics and Biochemical Basis of Pesticide Resistance

For the last three decades, incredible advancements have been made in understanding resistance of pesticides in arthropods, initially biochemical and physiological mechanisms, and more recently at the level of molecular genetics and genomics. The greatest improvement in molecular genetic studies has exposed many details about the resistance mechanisms, both at individual and population levels. That improvement has provided new perceptions on the microevolutionary processes that have been produced by them; it has also revealed unforeseen complexities that are very complicated to unravel. There are several mechanisms available for pesticide resistance which has been discussed below (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Schematic diagram for pesticide resistance mechanisms.

1.4 Changes in Pesticide Binding Sites

Every potent pesticide has one or more specific binding sites on macromolecules within the insect except mitochondrial uncouplers. The malfunctioning of the macromolecular site of action results in the binding of insecticide, that initiates a cascade of events which leads to the death of the particular insect. Changes in insecticide binding to the site of action, or to disturb its functions after binding, must lead to major changes in the overall impact on the insect. There is plenty of evidence that changes are the initial cause of resistance to different types of pesticides. Mostly, the point mutations lead to critical changes in amino acid residues in the receptor molecule compared to changes in the expression level of existing receptors. However, in some cases it seems that a functional target site is not dangerous for the existence of the insect even though its interaction with the pesticide leads to death. Significant changes on sites, either through mutation or decreased expression, are not always disadvantageous, and sometimes the complete elimination of the gene product (null mutation) is a viable pathway to greater levels of resistance. There have been several researches which like, Gahan et al. (2001) confirmed the loss of a cadhedrin‐binding protein for B. thuringiensis toxin in Heliothis virescens; the loss of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunit that binds the spinosyns in resist...